Reading Better States
Utopian Method and Environmental Harm in the Global South
Seiten
2026
Fordham University Press (Verlag)
978-1-5315-1265-1 (ISBN)
Fordham University Press (Verlag)
978-1-5315-1265-1 (ISBN)
- Noch nicht erschienen (ca. Februar 2026)
- Versandkostenfrei
- Auch auf Rechnung
- Artikel merken
Reading Better States traces the persistence of desires for the postcolonial state in an era of environmental harms and climate catastrophe. As pollution, toxicity, drought, and flood increasingly threaten peoples and environments across the global South, postcolonial writers and ordinary citizens alike have not ceded their futures to the damaged presents they inhabit. Rather, Reading Better States shows how they turn to the state as a resource, imagining postcolonial states as powerful actors and calling upon them to intervene in processes like global capitalism and environmental racism, or to provide environmental protections and basic material necessities. These utopic possibilities are concrete rather than grand, limited and situated rather than totalizing. But they are no less utopic for being quotidian.
Reading Better States challenges the anti-statism prevalent in postcolonial studies and the environmental humanities, where states are predominantly defined through violence. Seeing postcolonial states beyond their bad surfaces requires a utopian method of reading, a way of seeing the state that reads its negativity against the grain for alternative possibilities. In Reading Better States the state is Janus-faced. It is a bad actor, but it is also a site of collective hopes and concrete utopian visions. Using a wide-ranging archive of novels, films, court decisions, legislation, poetry, and testimony, Reading Better States reveals the importance of environmental concrete utopias in the present and reconsiders the postcolonial state for its interventionist possibilities as well as its violence. It does this through a utopian method that, like concrete utopias themselves, attends to negativity while stretching beyond it, seeking out visions of surplus which exceed, even if they cannot escape, the damage and disappointment of the present earth.
Reading Better States challenges the anti-statism prevalent in postcolonial studies and the environmental humanities, where states are predominantly defined through violence. Seeing postcolonial states beyond their bad surfaces requires a utopian method of reading, a way of seeing the state that reads its negativity against the grain for alternative possibilities. In Reading Better States the state is Janus-faced. It is a bad actor, but it is also a site of collective hopes and concrete utopian visions. Using a wide-ranging archive of novels, films, court decisions, legislation, poetry, and testimony, Reading Better States reveals the importance of environmental concrete utopias in the present and reconsiders the postcolonial state for its interventionist possibilities as well as its violence. It does this through a utopian method that, like concrete utopias themselves, attends to negativity while stretching beyond it, seeking out visions of surplus which exceed, even if they cannot escape, the damage and disappointment of the present earth.
Rebecca Oh is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 28.2.2026 |
|---|---|
| Zusatzinfo | 2 b/w illustrations |
| Verlagsort | New York |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 152 x 229 mm |
| Themenwelt | Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Wirtschaftsgeschichte |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik | |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft | |
| Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung | |
| ISBN-10 | 1-5315-1265-8 / 1531512658 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-5315-1265-1 / 9781531512651 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
Mehr entdecken
aus dem Bereich
aus dem Bereich
wie Tech-Konzerne und Großmächte die Welt unter sich aufteilen
Buch | Hardcover (2025)
C.H.Beck (Verlag)
CHF 39,20
